Adagietto
by Cyrelia J
Summary: Cleaning up after a murderous meal, Edward wants a taste of dessert. Oswald isn't so certain about the science in all of this. Edward/Oswald.


Note: Just a little diversion after watching episode 2x09. I was inspired by the final scene with Edward and Oswald and what may follow after their little dinner date. A warning for bloodplay if that's not your thing and some sexualized murder imagery. Don't know how much if any I'll do for this pairing in the future but this was too fun to resist. C&C is always welcome and thanks for reading!

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The tongue to the side of his face reminds him of the thoughtless swipe of a dog's- overzealous, presumptuous, and completely unselfconscious in its action. Oswald had wanted a dog for quite some time as a child; his mother didn't particularly care for animals. And that was the beginning and end of that conversation. It is not a dog however, who performs such an indiscretion but a man. That realization coming to him, his entire body tenses, his eyes still steely sharp facing forward. His hand clenches tighter around the phenolic laminate of the knife handle.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asks in a stiff voice.

"My apologies," the man- Edward Nygma- is quick to apologize, materializing at his side in full force pushing his glasses back up on his face. They, unlike the rest of him, are clean. They're pristine, freshly polished, a contrast to the blood staining the rest of his pale face. Oswald closes his eyes for a moment. He feels that lightheadedness again and it frustrates him. Blood loss. That's what Edward had said to him. Of course he cannot be expected to make such a quick recovery. The rush, the excitement, had overtaken him. It had allowed him to feel as if he could move mountains- or at the very least walk to the bathroom and wash up under his own power. He reaches a hand out to steady himself against the wall hating that helpless feeling.

"Don't do it again," he growls, the sound far less intimidating than he would have liked.

"Of course. Absolutely. I have no idea what came over me. I mean I know of course my thought. My thought was that I was curious, about the taste…"

"The taste?" Oswald answers in spite of his silent promise to himself not to draw any more inane chatter from the other than is warranted. He bites the inside of his cheek in reprimand to himself for that oversight.

"Oh yes. And I was right, in fact," Edward continues in an excited rush. "It's different on your skin than mine… See?"

Oswald turns his head just in time to see that tongue again- rather than feel it this time- giving a similar treatment to the back of a bloodied hand. It's a strange sight, seeing a grown man behaving like a cat grooming itself. He shakes his head.

"I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be seeing, friend."

"It's the PH level of your skin of course. Most people think that it's just scent that changes on a person's skin but it's much more than that." Edward appears thoughtful, making an uncomfortable study of Oswald's face. He feels sore. It's making him short- or maybe that's the Edward himself causing that irritation. He really shouldn't feel irritated. Elation, effervescence, those are the usual emotions that rush through him in triumphant moments like this. He grasps at that moment of satisfaction, hand dropping as a less obvious crutch on the blue glass bowl of the sink basin, finding that scrutiny to be strange.

That's not to say he isn't accustomed to people staring at him- his gait, his dress, all manner of things- but this isn't a stare so much as a curious index of features, falling down to the rest of his body.

"You know I'd actually imagined that it would be a bit more bitter on you more alkaline, actually. Perhaps just another small sample-"

"Yes, well, as thrilling an experiment as that sounds," Oswald cuts in, forcing his legs steady enough to stand up straighter and turn the water on, "I'm afraid I must decline any further scientific endeavors." Edward is tall, he realizes brilliantly. Tall people annoy him. Annoyance mingles with that waning euphoria leaving him tired. He thinks for now he can live with just a change of whatever clothing he can stand.

"Oh of course of course!" The exclamation comes a bolt out of the blue, Edward practically scrambling over arms extended with towels and a washrag magicked from some hidden linen closet. "Yes, I should have expected in your condition that this might have been a bit too much exertion but…" His voice is an excited rush as he sets the bundle down in the lid of the toilet tank. "I really was just so excited. I couldn't really restrain myself." The admission that's hardly any surprise is followed by a wide smile, Edward's face far too close to his own for comfort, right in his personal space again, eager, effusive. He really is so terribly new at this. His manners prompt Oswald to force a smile. He imagines himself giving the taller Edward a pat on the head for a job well done, a lonely stray following him home. However this is _not_ his home and it may be some time before he can even bring himself to return there.

"Restraint is often overrated," Oswald offers charitably wondering if that was the best tact to take to get a bit of privacy. He absently turns the knife around in his palm, the interwoven fabric of the canvas phenolic a comforting tactile sensation.

"Oh quite, Mr. Penguin," Edward agrees still looking at his blood stained skin. "In fact, they've been conducting a study at Arkham recently to study the connection between criminal acts and impulse control. I mean you'd think that's been done to death- no pun intended- but they seem to feel the more unbalanced elements might offer a unique insight into say the brain chemistry, any malformations of the frontal lobes beyond acceptable level of developmental discrepancy or even…"

"You're too close again," Oswald interrupts him, feeling unwelcome body heat too far into his personal space. He turns around awkwardly, eyes avoiding the mirror in front of him as he half sits against the edge of the cabinet where the sink basin rests.

Edward takes exactly one step back.

"Say you'd never seek to lose me, while you live we cannot part, I must dwell lifelong inside you, locked within your beating heart."

Oswald blinks at him a few times not quite understanding the point of what he's just said. But then it comes to him in a moment, of course, it is a riddle. He frowns, unwittingly ponderinging the answer before his better mind tells him that he's above such nonsense.

"Friend," he says with a shake of his head, "I believe we've already established that I don't care for riddles."

"It's blood," Edward answers back undeterred, that mousy scatter of their first meeting will clearly be nothing but a memory now. In fact, those eyes study his face once more, not his features, Oswald realizes, but that sticky splash of blood that he's yet to wash off. And that study is followed by a twitch of muscles, a fast aborted dart inward, but that unconscious lick that Oswald sees, speaks volumes about where Edward's mind it at present. "Just a little... a little..." Edward tilts his head just a bit, the look of a stray about to dare for that piece of meat discarded on the busy sidewalk. "Just a little..." He whispers, more like breathes the word taste, half to himself. Oswald briefly clutches the knife tighter but instead finds himself setting it down behind him with a loud clatter.

He recognizes that faint nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach, that flutter kick of anxiety that accompanies a disastrous attempt at intimacy with some "shameful hussy", as his mother would often bemoan. This is the first time he's felt that similar sense of anticipatory dread with a man. He might chalk that up to his current physical state, after all, he isn't one of _those_ as his mother would whisper with a near superstitious hush, but Oswald has never been one to lie to himself and truth be told he's never considered his proclivities much one way or the other. His prospects have always seemed dismal regardless of gender. He has never been one to look away from the unpleasantness of reality, from truth in all its ugly sordid forms. And the truth of even this moment, he decides, is that it is not he that is the object of any lustful state, but rather the drying splash of color covering his exposed skin. Even so, he would be a fool if he didn't recognize the intimacy of allowing this sort of ridiculous indulgence intentionally sexual or not. Actually, all considerations given there _is_ a rather practical side to _that_ sort of indulgence, a lack of risk, a lack of encumbrances that females usually bring. He supposes then that this, much like the subjective matter of murder, is one of those gray areas where he and his mother are going to have, unbeknownst to her, a respectful difference of opinion. And that settles it.

"I believe I said a minute ago not to do that again."Oswald's eyes make a feral, quick dart to Edward's mouth. He has very nice teeth- that smile speaks to the expensive maintenance of a fleet of orthodontics- however what particularly fixates Oswald's attention are those eyes.

"You also said that restraint is overrated." There is a certain beautiful mania there, a certain life that he finds the majority of his fellow human dullards are lacking, which lies in those irises. His mother had an abundance of it and he's always found it rather comforting. Comforting is not quite the word he would use when he faces that intense barely blinking focus. Oswald feels lightheaded again, though not in the manner of a man about to crumple to the floor in a heap but rather a man who's about to take flight and feel nothing but clouds beneath his corporeal body. He meets that smile halfway, close mouthed, considering.

"And if I let you... taste me again, friend... then what's in it for me?" He throws that challenge out fingers curling under the edge of the marble counter top as if they could crumble stone to dust beneath his fingers.

He waits for the answer, patiently swallowing bile down, not knowing Edward half well enough to be able to anticipate whatever bauble, whatever favor he might offer in return. He sees another small bounce, a clasp of hands behind Edward's back, as if he might be wringing them out of nerves or excitement- quite likely both. That smile, however, doesn't fade for a moment, in full wattage when he answers blithely,

"You get to taste me back, of course." Of course. Oswald almost laughs at the audacity of that statement. As if they're two children on the playground daring each other to eat a worm. One for one, taste for taste. He feels that burble of laugher blossom from his chest until he can't help but half laugh, half hiccup, head dipping forward far too fast. He chuckles, shoulders shaking, feeling on that edge where he may grab the knife and jam it right between Edward's ribs just to feel his spray out hot blood and bathe him anew in that wet nasty heat, just to feel him convulse again him in a heady violent death throe.

Oswald looks back up with a slow drawn in breath- that he'll be told later by a tipsy Edward is his "coquettish come hither" look- and remembers quite poignantly one thing Fish would often say to him. Death, is the ultimate aphrodisiac, she would frequently declare often in the presence of one of her many boy toys. There is a certain primitive drive to reassert one's vitality, to deny one's own mortality in the most base biological matter when confronted by that terrifying specter. Oswald feels that convergence, that stir, the thought of lettering Edward that close, that entwined around him only to... stick it in him hard to be an almost overwhelming imperative.

"And what makes you so certain that I would want to... taste you?" His hand moves just a touch back toward the blade. Edward retakes that retreated step forcing him to look up far more steeply than he would like.

"Because I taste good," he fires back, cheerful, but not cocky, his breathing unsteady, as if he very well might tackle him to the ground with the right word. "Do I have your permission, Mr. Penguin?"

Ah the formality, the flattery, Edward could be trained far better than Butch, Oswald thinks. But Oswald has no shortage of willing lackeys and there is a certain give and take to a mutually beneficial friendship that is far more satisfying. Oswald shrugs in response to that question, tension still running high through his shoulders.

"Certainly. Who am I to stand in the way of science?" He braces himself as best as he can against the sink, the running water behind him bringing to mind his mother telling him that it's a waste of money to "water the sink" as she would say. He sighs, missing her again for that moment almost moving to turn it off. But no, there are no more encumbrances, no more liabilities. And there is also no more time to consider that as Edward is on him just like that imagined stray, starving, desperate to eat its fill before being chased back into the shadows of the alleyway.

There is an instinctual panic that rises with the speed of that movement. Oswald nearly takes the knife up when he sees the fast dart of that head coming straight for his face. His legs are locked tight, trembling muscles reminding him that he doesn't have much left to go on, and he realizes that to let go of the sink may very well mean to let go of dignity once more, and have to rely on Edward propping him up. Dignity, is a luxury that Oswald has been often ill able to afford, but it is one he covets furiously when he's able to have it at his table. So he stands still, looking back unintimidated by the pale ghost that stalks him and presses a mouth once more to the side of his face. A mouth, followed by a tongue, makes a greedy trail over his cheek, and Oswald turns his head knowing that only exposes far more of that stained canvas for inspection. That wet canine tongue is painted long broad strokes, warm, slick, making him instinctively want to wipe his face off with a sleeve that's likely far more dirty now than the skin it would be cleaning. And it's not only a tongue, that his senses register once that tension in his shoulders drop, but warm breath following, heating his skin.

Oswald realizes that the bathroom itself is surprisingly warm, but that really shouldn't be a surprise considering its interior location. It's isolated- no windows, one door, one escape- and itself quieted from the rest of the apartment. It's the perfect place to murder, to let one scream, to let one bleed down the small gray pressed stone of the floor to the center drain. His hand itches for that knife again. But he finds that isn't his only thought as Edward speaks softly against his skin.

"...higher level of acidity than I do," he breathes, mouthing Oswald's jaw in an exploration that feels almost too intimate. "Your diet I suspect is high in protein. Higher than mine, that is." That commentary comes with the tickle of his lips forming those words and in spite of himself, Oswald shivers and feels that shiver blur to heat blooming from that spot outward, until he thinks the entire side of his face is hot. That heat spreads when that commentary comes with a soft sigh to his skin, a pedantic warning about Ben Franklin and the gout as that mouth moves back to his ear. Oswald opens his mouth to protest, amidst the panting that's growing more pronounced as that tongue passes down his neck and teeth follow nipping, as if they might draw his own blood to the surface and drink. He is going to interject that whatever this experiment, this exchange of curiosities may be, it has no authority over his dietary choices.

What comes instead is a soft his of "yesss...yesss..." some cluster of nerves near neck and shoulder prompting a spasm of his leg that brings to full awareness just how close Edward is to him. Of course he had not imagined a disembodied head floating to him, to his exposed shoulder of its own volition, but somehow that mouth seemed separate from the rest until his leg hit another leg, and the rest of that body is bloomed out of the darkness to full tangible reality. Oswald turns his head back, suddenly aware of hands that expose more skin, of that mouth nipping to his shoulder, bare, naked, devoid of any blood sample to taste. But of all the things brought to the forefront of his senses to draw in, perhaps the most telling is the hardness pressing into his hip, Edward's hips a slow subtle rocking motion against him. Oswald blinks, stares hard at that pale, blood spattered neck, and envisions taking that knife to slice a long clean stroke across his jugular, letting that spray bleed him out in a few precious blissful seconds.

That thought makes him feel warmer. It makes that heat of his shoulder spread further down, a vivisecting vivication of the libidinous flow of blood to the rest of his body. It makes him smile in fact, a broad grin to match Edward's characteristic wide show of teeth. He lets his grip on the sink loosen with just that one hand, fingers spider crawling back slowly, carefully, until they feel the texture of that handle brushing his fingertips. It will be have to be slow and subtle. He's not well enough for a struggle, and he really does picture this going off in such a specific way. He may even start shallow. He might let the blade just drag along the side of that craning neck to leave a long shallow trail that he can watch flow slowly down like his mother's prized golden fringe necklace. Oswald thinks that Edward would look far more elegant, be far more still with his death than that man, Leonard. Yes, that would be quite-

"Did you know that the stratum corneum on your lips is far thinner than anywhere else on your body?" Oswald realizes, with that interruption, that he's looking into Edward's eyes once move, that neck having moved, that head having turned in the midst of his reverie to look at him, look into him, wildly, madly excited. No, he cannot do this slowly, it will have to be stuck in, shoved in, as hard as he can manage.

"W-what?" he asks a stammer of his dry lips not having paid much attention to that question.

"The protective covering over the epidermis. And you know... your lips don't have any sebaceous glands either," he continues in a rush, those eyes falling to Oswald's mouth. He can feel Edward vibrate against him like the magic fingers of a cheap motel bed. Those eyes bring to full understanding the lead in of that question and be absently tastes his own lips in response.

He feels a jerk against him, a stoppered pop, Edward bring a hand up quickly, as if he might seize his tongue to keep it from stealing more of that salty bounty. He drops it again quickly.

"Save some," he ejaculates with another pleading push against Oswald's hip. "I want to..."

"You want to?" Oswald teases him now, his hand covering the knife handle , closing around it like a perfect homecoming. He lets his body turn, getting to a better position-

"I want to taste it from your mouth, Mr. Penguin."

-when he realizes with that shift in position, with that renewed contact that he himself is actually-

"Then what's stopping you, friend?"

-completely hard, aching, needing-

"I cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt." -one final push away from- "I lie behind stars and under hills,

And empty holes I fill." -that blinding, completion.

"I come first and follow after." Edward's voice is a low whisper as his face draws closer, almost forcing Oswald's eyes to cross. "I end life. I kill laughter." There's a slight turn of his head and it comes to him just as their lips around about to meet. He hates riddles. He never knows the answer- clever Penguin stumped by the most pedestrian of stupid word games. Except somehow he knows the answer to this one. _Darkness. Close your eyes. And that's when I'll come for you._

He closes them just as a hand closes over his own on the knife. But it doesn't stop the raise of that weapon. Rather, it follows that path, to wherever the blade's edge may fall and he realizes then that there isn't space between their bodies to thread a needle. And that's when Edward kisses him.


End file.
